Memories of Love
by MisterYada
Summary: Holo the Wise reflects on her happy past with Lawrence. One-shot.


**Memories of Love**

Bitter tears ran down my cheeks, warming them only slightly before the air could chill me again. It was the end of the harvest season. A usually warm time, if I were in the Southern region, but not in my home of the North, covered in perpetual snow. It was this time, long ago, that we had met.

By some divine intervention, he was passing through on trade business as the grain that would be my prison for the year was threshed by that traitorous girl. Luck had it be that he happened to have a good bundle of wheat in his cart, allowing me to escape the village that was slowly resenting me and the power I held over their crops. I spent the rest of the day hiding out under the canvas he covered his cart with. Needless to say, he was quite surprised at finding me lying naked in the pile of pelts he had been transporting that night.

We struck a deal, as a business man such as him was wont to do. As both the village and I had grown tired of each other, I wanted to venture back to my homeland, to see the ones of my kind I had left there so long ago. I was to join him on his perpetual journey across the land until we came upon my destination, where we would part after I had repaid any debt I incurred along the way. At least, that's what the original contract had been.

Our trek brought us to many towns and cities, each complete with their own stories and adventures. Friends and enemies came and went, along with money. The thought of currency now makes me both laugh at its absurdity and rage over how it could seemingly bring out the worst in man. Not him, of course. Aside from me, the thought of money and how to gain it seemed to make him better.

He taught me much about the business of merchants. Coin purity, exchange rates, credit. Much had to be taken into account when you were in this line of work. Some lessons were quick and simple for me to learn, while others were hard, on both of us.

I'm not sure when, but along the way, I fell for him. I know exactly _why, _for sure. He was handsome, if only in a rugged manner, yet at the same time he could have passed for nobility easily. Looks aside, there was plenty more to him. He had the uncanny ability to turn nearly any situation to his favor, along with the ability to gain the complete trust of anyone he met. Most important, though, was that he still wanted to be with me, despite my being difficult with him so many times. Normal men would have given up long ago, but he strove to be with me, even when I pushed him away.

He had confessed to me as the last city we inhabited before leaving on the final stretch of our journey fell victim to riots. The sounds of anger and hate all around were drowned out as my sensitive ears focused on the three most singularly fantastic words I had heard from him up to that point. It was at that exact moment that both of us realized that without each other, our lives weren't complete.

In the midst of the chaos, we left the city and made our way North as fast as possible. We picked up only a few things from the sparse towns along the way, not staying long so that no troubles would impede our path. We already had an idea of what to expect when we reached my home, and prepared provisions accordingly. Sadly, the only thing unprepared was me.

Tears instantly blurred my vision as I beheld the long destroyed and forgotten village that had been my birthplace, Yoitsu. He left me on the cart as he searched each abandoned, snow-filled cabin, knowing as well as I did that nothing living was among the broken buildings. A dark thought crossed my mind that sent me into a paralyzing depression. _I was the last of my kind._

I became stricken. Not of a malady of body, but of mind. Everything stopped registering to me at that point. As I sat there, unresponsive, he had found a cabin in nearly pristine condition, out of the view of the wreckage. It was there he set up home, and it is there that I live now.

He took me inside, laying me down in one of the beds he found. Weeks passed as I laid there, doing nothing more than sleeping or staring into nothingness. My greatest fear had been realized. Loneliness. Complete and utter loneliness, from which nothing could save me, or so I thought. He was there.

It was a particularly cold night when he saved me from myself. To give me space, he had occupied the other room, but this night was so bitingly cold that he couldn't help but impose himself upon me in my distraught state. I said nothing as he climbed under the covers, already warm from my own body. He rarely entered the room before, thinking it might put me under further stress, so his prolonged presence elicited a response from me.

My hands probed his body as my eyes looked unseeing, as if I were blind. My fingers found solid, warm, living flesh, not some illusion my grief-stricken mind had created. The spell over me broke as I truly realized who it was next to me. I lost my sickness-induced stoic composure and began to cry, trying my hardest between sobs to tell him how sorry I was. He said nothing, but held me close as I sobbed into his chest. After the last tear had fallen, he looked into my eyes, smiling, and said those three words again, and for the first time, I said them back. We made sure to say that to each other every day for the many years we spent together.

With those years came the ultimate sign of two who could not be separated. Children. We had had seven of them. He would jokingly call them our Seven Apples, referring to the time I had bought a large amount of the luscious fruit. Three boys and four girls; one boy and girl being each others' twin. Some had inherited the fangs, ears, and tail from my blood, while other could walk among normal people as easily as he could, yet all of them had that slightly divine spark like I that gave all of us an unnaturally extended life.

At one point I was worried over what he thought about my timeless body, as his had started to noticeably age from the years spent here. I had heard stories before of mortal men with immortal lovers who became jealous as their time in this life came ever closer to the end. Such was not the case with him, as he told me that as long as I was next to him, aged or not, he was happy.

Further on in the years, our children were bitten by the wanderlust that had affected both their parents. Slowly, our home emptied the same as it had filled, until all that remained was us and our youngest daughter, Leona. She was, in nearly all aspects, a younger me. Long, flowing hair, a tail of the finest quality of fur, and pointed ears sensitive to all sound. The one sign of her being her father's daughter was the pure silver her hair was spun of.

She stood next to me now as snow fell all about. Her ears twitching, picking up the same sound I did. I made no move as my eyes remain fixed on the stone marker in front of me. She walked off without a sound, probably to meet her siblings at the cabin.

It had been two-hundred years to that day that me and him met, and nearly one-hundred and fifty since sickness had taken him from me in the night. One last tear fell before I spoke.

"Lawrence. My one and only love."

Author's Notes

Amazing what you can write in a couple hours after spending a whole night reading H.P. Lovecraft stories while listening to a bizarre but amazing mix of metal, alt-rock, and grunge.

Don't own Spice and Wolf. Just wanted to put that little disclaimer up.

I don't have much to say on this, as I was, and still am, basically brain dead writing this. If you have any comments, good or bad, please post a review. It's always good to know someone is at least reading my work. And if it's positive, then I may have found a new writing style.


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